I somehow let my older sister talk me into decorating a diaper can, with drawings of elephants, for a gift that she'll be giving at an upcoming baby shower (the expectant mother is fond of elephants).

I started out by making several No. 2 pencil sketches of the animal. These are all original designs from my head, I didn't look at any reference material, although My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fluttershy did cross my mind while I was sketching the worried one looking over its shoulder. While it was the first one that I drew, I ultimately ended up not using the pachyderm in the sitting pose with the ribbon on her head.

Next, I measured out the spacing needed for the pictures and temporarily marked that off with transparent tape. Then, because the can was made out of translucent plastic, it was simply a matter of holding my pencil drawings up against the interior wall and tracing the illustrations onto the exterior of the can with colored Sharpie permanent markers. It was a straightforward process, just monotonous. I did have to accommodate some curved, concave surfaces molded into the can's surface, but that wasn't much of a problem.

Materials: United Solutions plastic utility can and colored Sharpie markers (all of which my sister provided). The original illustrations were done with No. 2 pencil on white paper from one of my old sketch pads.

Dimensions: With the lid on, the can is 41 cm (16.1") tall and has a circumference of roughly 101 cm (39.8") at its thickest point (the top).

Time: Two days, August 3rd and 4th, 2014. I drew three of the pencil elephant illustrations, and repeatedly copied two of them onto the bottom and middle rows of the diaper can, on the 3rd. On the following day, I drew the sleeping elephant in pencil and then traced that five times onto the top row of the can to finish the project.